


Like a Bridge Over Troubled Water

by blackhorseandthecherrytree



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M, Grief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-29
Updated: 2013-04-29
Packaged: 2017-12-09 21:36:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/778232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackhorseandthecherrytree/pseuds/blackhorseandthecherrytree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She'll keep on flying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Bridge Over Troubled Water

Disclaimer: I don't own Firefly.

* * *

 

“You know what I thought when I saw you for the first time?”

“Tell me, my winsome apple blossom.”

“I thought that either you were on the run, or a consarned idiot, and we were screwed either way. And it was entirely because of that gorram moustache.”

-

Zoe has never been the sort to believe in fairytales. The verse is too hard a place for happy endings. She learned to endure with patience and act with strength early on.

But Wash – Wash was a friend she never expected. He was sweet, and goofy, and surprisingly tender. He made it damn hard to keep a straight face. He was the first decent man to look at her as a woman, not just a soldier, in forever-long. She never regretted a moment of it, even though it all ended in dust. Everything does.

-

“Hey hey hey. I was an up and coming young pilot. All my class at the Academy wore them. It was a thing! How can you deny the power of a thing?”

“I’m sure I can find plenty of ways. For one, it looked like a giant yellow caterpillar sitting right on your upper lip.”

“Now that – uh, Zoe – that – that is not true. That isn’t – it did not.”

“It did. You know it, and I know it, and the Captain knew it-“

“Can we not talk about Mal right now? ‘Cause, really, he is just about the last thing on my mind.”

“Well. And here I was about to get worried.”

“Hey, baby. Nobody holds a candle to you.” A beat. “So if that moustache was that bad, why did you kiss me while I was still wearing it?”

-

He brought out things in her that she’d thought were long extinguished – laughter and sunshine, nurture and love. Her flyboy lover needed soil to grow in, as she needed air to breathe. Together, they made their own atmosphere. Together, they were whole.

-

“I wanted to give you motivation. After all –“ and she bends over him, wrapping around him, kissing right there, yes, good – “it was, apparently, a thing.”

“I don’t miss it that much,” Wash croaks.

-

There was this one time, in the cockpit – they’d tossed the dinosaurs to the floor in order to play – and when they were done, she looked at his crooked, satisfied smile and knew that she was in love with him. This man had taken her heart, and she wasn’t ever going to get it back.

All that was left, after, were crumpled sheets, Hawaiian shirts, dinosaur toys. The body of a man filled with laughter and love, possessed of a perceptiveness all his own. Memories held in objects tainted by association. Memories. And – this.

-

Sometimes she talks to him, as she walks the ship at nights. There’s an eye on the cockpit at all times. She keeps her shift same as everyone else. But sometimes she gets restless, and sometimes she can’t stand to look at the toys River bought that share space with Wash’s dinosaurs.

“They’re lonely without someone to play with,” River had said, in her unsettling off-kilter way, eyes focused on something over Zoe’s shoulder only she could see. “And I like elephants. They never forget anything.”

Yes. But River bought a family. A mother, a father, and a small child, and that just isn’t going to happen anymore.

So she talks to Wash’s ghost, if he’s still lingering. Zoe’s heard stories of loved ones who couldn’t bear to part and go off into whatever comes after death. She’s never put much stock into them, but. There’s a chance. And these days they risk anything on a chance.

-

“We set sail for Persephone today. Captain figures that if any of our old contacts survived, Badger did. Shoulda called himself Cockroach.”

“River’s doing better. Still crazy, but there’s only so much you can ask for. She’s earning her keep in your shoes.”

“We needed a pilot. And you were always so much more to me than a pilot.”

“Besides, Captain needed someplace safe to put her so Simon wouldn’t go ballistic when we use her in the field. The doc’s gotten a mite more easygoing what with Kaylee and all, but he’s still not comfortable with letting his baby sister kick some ass.”

“Me? Oh, nothing special. Just living. I miss you.”

“I love you too, baby.”

-

There’s a day. Zoe’s coping. But River looks at her, and she knows. She goes to see Simon when they get back, even if the girl is likely watching from the vents. Or not. Maybe she don’t need to.

-

“You don’t have to go through with this. If you don’t want –“

“No.”

“Okay.” A pause. “You know that everything in here is completely confidential. You don’t have to worry about anyone knowing anything before you’re ready.”

“I appreciate that, Simon. Thank you.” She stands up, feels the kinks and aches of stretching muscles. Something like expectation is growing in her heart.

The infirmary’s not so far from the loading area and the loading area’s not so far from the main hallway, and her voice carries. So she yells. “Captain!”

“What is it, Zoe?” The man yells back.

“I’m gonna need some paid leave!”

There’s a sound of something being dropped and grumbled cursing. “You don’t get paid leave!”

“I do if I say I do, sir!”

“Who’s Captain on this ship?”

“You are, sir!”

“So why don’t I get to decide who gets paid leave and who doesn’t?”

“Because I need it, sir!”

“And why in the four heavens would you need paid leave?”

Zoe makes sure her face is perfectly deadpan. “Because I’m pregnant, sir!”

Mal runs out of the hallway – man musta been working on one of the smuggling spots – down the stairs, and jumps to the infirmary. “I didn’t give you permission to get pregnant.”

“No, sir.” And gorram it all, she can’t stop the smile on her face.

-

It astounds her, how happy she feels. There’s still an ache. Wash should be here, Wash should see his child, Wash should be able to make mistakes and love and celebrate with her. Wash should be alive. But this way, there’s a part of him that lives on. Something he helped make. Something alive, not dead, for once.

Tonight’s for laughter and planning with Kaylee and Inara and River. Later’s for tears.

-

“I don’t know how I’m gonna do this, Wash. A child, in this world? I’ve gotta be some kind of crazy.”

“I know I married you. But that was something different.”

“I want this child. I want it so much, baby. And it won’t be as hard as it could be. I’ve got everybody here. But I’m still gonna be raising this child alone. I still miss you, Wash. I’m never going to stop.”

The silence answers back no questions.

-

It should feel stranger, to hold some small body inside your stomach. But there it is. Some days she holds its existence on faith, and hems maternity clothes. Other days she bends over the pull-out toilet and wonders why the kid has to put her through so much trouble before it’s even born.

Inara’s taken her place as second in the field. The Alliance has destroyed her career, but she still has usable skills. Zoe’s not going to be eligible for combat until this kid’s well and fully grown. She’ll raise it on a starship. She won’t risk the pea’s only parent any more than that.

So now she’s first mate, and second pilot, and one of her jobs is to keep herself safe. She does the math twice over, and she looks for jobs. She keeps herself occupied and the ship clean. Basically, she does most everything she did before, only more so. It’ll be harder once the baby comes.

-

There is some friction between Jayne and Inara and Mal – Jayne being a _pi gu_ and Inara and Mal being whatever they are to each other. Zoe doesn’t ask questions she doesn’t want to know the answers to. But they get over it, and Zoe sends River on enough missions with them that they finally get some sorta sense beaten into them. And Inara’s as good as she is at sizing up a situation and finding a conclusive solution. So there’s that.

“It’s not so easy, is it,” says Simon, with two cups of steaming tea. Kaylee musta kicked him out for some reason or another. They like to take advantage of the privacy when the others are out on mission, especially after that one time they caught River being River.

The tea is good, though, and she can afford to let her observation pass unspoken. The doc still has all of his upperclass modesty. “What’s not so easy?”

“Having to stay behind.” He stares at his tea, and grips the handle. “It’s hard enough for me just letting go of River. I can’t imagine it wouldn’t be harder for you to stop going out there. To stop being a soldier.”

It’s an interesting comment to make. But Simon doesn’t know her well. Now seems like a good opportunity. “Soldiering is a mindset, not a job. Could you stop being a doctor even if you don’t get paid for it?”

Simon smiles ruefully. “Well, I lost my license when I took River, so I suppose the answer’s no. I could never unlearn those skills.”

Zoe looks at him – all pale and skinny, from his head to his delicate doctor’s hands. She makes a decision. “You wanna learn a new skillset, doc?”

“Ah. What kind of skillset?”

She leans back. “Anyone ever taught you to shoot a gun?”

“I took the Hippocratic Oath, Zoe. I can’t break that.”

“Sure. Until you find you can save somebody’s life by shooting some bad people. Or why else did you come with us to rescue the Captain from Niska?” She switches the radio to broadcast to all speakers, then stands with her mug of tea. “C’mon, doc. It won’t bite.”

-

There was once a man that Zoe loved. He wasn’t the bravest or the smartest or the cleverest. She could’ve beaten him in an arm-wrestling contest any day of the week. But he was hers, and she was his, and that was enough. What they had, they had, and now it isn’t anymore.

Well? And who can’t say that, these days?

She’ll keep flying.


End file.
